


A Strong Heart and a Nerve of Steel

by destinies



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Excessive Drinking, F/M, Hangover, Las Vegas Wedding, Or Is It?, POV Rey (Star Wars), Recreational Drug Use, Rey Has Regrets, Rich Ben Solo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-08 14:34:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16431272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/destinies/pseuds/destinies
Summary: The stranger pushes up from the mattress and asks, “Are you all right?”“Am Iall right?” Rey repeats, sitting bolt upright. “AmI all right? I don’t know. It’s Vegas, there’s a ring on my finger, a strange man in my hotel room, and I don’t remember the last ten or so hours... how bad could this be?”--Rey awakens in Las Vegas, married to a man she's never met.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [this prompt](http://destinieswritten.tumblr.com/post/179454154968/another-first-sentence-prompt-if-youre-feeling-up), which ran entirely out of control. Thanks to [Tamara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/voicedimplosives) for the alpha read, [Mixy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/afalsebravado) for betaing, and [Trixie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TourmalineGreen), who let me bounce ideas off her and who submitted the original prompt in the first place. ♥

Oh, there’s black jack and poker and the roulette wheel  
A fortune won and lost on ev’ry deal  
All you need’s a strong heart and a nerve of steel  
Viva Las Vegas, viva Las Vegas

— “Viva Las Vegas,” Elvis Presley

* * *

            Rey awakens slowly, and then all at once.

            This sounds very poetic, but she awakens slowly because her eyelids are leaden, her joints stiff, her head a bag of rocks instead of— well, a head. She must have been drinking heavily last night, but _of course_ even that is unclear. Her last memory is of her unlikely win at the slot machines and whooping and hollering with her friends and Poe throwing an arm around her shoulder and cheerfully proclaiming that drinks were on her. After the first few cocktails, everything gets blurry and tapers off into nothingness. Maybe she can reconstruct what happened based on her surroundings—

            She then awakens all at once when she realizes there’s a stranger in her bed.

            The man is in a black button-down shirt, laying on his stomach and watching her through sleep-clouded brown eyes with irises edged in gold. His hair is an unruly black mop, his nose a bit overly large, but compelling in shape. Most of him is hidden underneath the comforter, but she can see his shoulders, which are so broad they almost seem to be straining the seams of his shirt. He is neither handsome nor unhandsome; he is interesting. Rey could do worse.

 _All right_ , she thinks. _So I slept with a man I don’t know. Or maybe I didn’t. It happens. Plenty of people do this and turn out just fine_. She groans, closes her eyes, opens them again. Still there. God, her head is killing her. She blinks again, in no mood to begin the extremely necessary conversation about names, relationship status, protection, and STIs, and rolls onto her back, bringing up a hand to run through her hair.

            Which is when she notices the unfamiliar texture and weight of the ring.

            Rey gasps, and pulls her hand out of her hair, holding it out in front of her. Yep, there it is. A simple gold band at the base of her ring finger. She wiggles all of her fingers, squints through one eye. No, still there. That is definitely a wedding band and it is definitely still there.

            She does what any sensible person would do, and exclaims, “Oh, _bloody_ hell!”

            As if oblivious to the absurdity of this situation, the stranger pushes up from the mattress and asks, “Are you all right?”

            “Am I _all right_?” she repeats, sitting bolt upright. “ _Am_ I all right? I don’t know. It’s Vegas, there’s a ring on my finger, a strange man in my hotel room, and I don’t remember the last ten or so hours... how bad could this be?”

            “Put like that,” the man beside her says, “very bad.”

            Rey groans and flops back on the luxurious king bed, her head spinning. None of this makes any sense. She’s fairly certain she was sharing a queen bed with Rose. Come to think of it, everything in the room around her is much too large and much too nice to be _hers_. A door cracked slightly open separates the bedroom from another, adjoining room. There is a white chaise lounge a few feet away that matches the bed. Matching! Chaise lounge! This is a very nice suite, or maybe a palace. It certainly seems palatial compared to, well, anywhere Rey has ever been. She pats herself down and finds that the sparkly silver dress she bought for this trip at Forever 21 is wrinkled but still on her body, as are her bra and panties, which is — she glances sideways at the stranger — mostly a relief, given the shock of everything else.

            “I’m Rey,” she says, suppressing a ludicrous giggle at having to introduce herself to her own husband. “Rey Johnson. I’m really sorry about this.”

            “I know. I’m Ben,” says the stranger, who just keeps looking at her. He, too, is wearing rumpled clothing, and Rey notices a purplish-red splotch on his neck and she realizes that this is indeed so, so bad.

            “Well, hi. I— I’m here with friends,” she stammers. “I should find my friends.”

            Ben nods, rubs a hand over his face, and says, “I should call my lawyer.”

            “ _What_?”

* * *

            Rey offers to leave the bedroom for this lawyer conversation, but Ben says she might as well stay, since it concerns her as well. She does, and she is glad for it. Her limbs are heavy, her brain is still wandering about in a pea soup fog, and whenever a new light turns on she feels a stab behind her left eye.

            The lawyer, appearing before them through the magic of Ben’s iPhone and the astonishingly good hotel WiFi, makes himself look very busy by shuffling the papers on his desk. “Let me get this straight,” he says. “You went on a bender in _Las Vegas_ , woke up married to a girl you don’t know, and now you want me to confirm whether or not the marriage is valid?”

            Rey thinks Ben might remark on the thinly-veiled disdain in his lawyer’s voice, but all he says is, “Yes.”

            “This is why you keep me on retainer,” the lawyer sighs. “To clean up your messes. I’ll need a few hours.”

            Rey squints at the screen. “You’re a Brit, like me.”

            “How astutely observed.”

            “Can you even practice law in the States?”

            “I can practice in four, Miss Johnson, and the District of Columbia.”

            She groans and leans over, burying her face in Ben’s neck. Might as well, since he’s right here, they may be married, and she can’t possibly stay upright on her own for any longer. Besides, she’s doing him a favor by hiding that hickey. She feels the cords in his neck move as he turns his head toward her. “She’s very hungover,” Ben explains, a non-apology by way of stating facts.

            “‘M not,” Rey mumbles into his collar.

            “Clearly. Well, I’ll leave you to… it,” the lawyer says. “Solo, I’ll call back when I’ve taken care of your vermin problem.”

            “Oi!” Rey exclaims, picking her head back up. But the lawyer has already disconnected the call, so instead of unleashing a stream of invective upon him she just mutters, “I really don’t like that guy.”

            “I don’t either,” Ben says, “which is why he’s a decent lawyer. Breakfast?”

* * *

            Ben puts in a call to room service to order them both a continental breakfast — juice, coffee, and pastries. Rey sheepishly requests orange juice and promises to pay him back, but he refuses to hear it. Won’t even tell her what his Venmo is. She is privately relieved; given the decadence of the room, she’s certain the orange juice alone would be out of her budget.

            Her stomach turns over at the thought of food, and she quickly excuses herself to spend the next few minutes getting acquainted with one of the two washrooms in the worst possible way. Two! For a single bedroom! Choosing between them nearly costs Rey dearly, but she picks the smaller one and manages to locate a toilet just in time to avoid ralphing on the very nice marble floors. That would really be the cherry on top of this whole wonderful morning.

            Rey’s new maybe-husband gives her space for this ordeal. Once she emerges from the washroom feeling a bit more settled, he offers her mouthwash, which she accepts with very quiet thanks. Unlike Rey, Ben is not actually fully dressed; at some point the previous evening, her drunken self stripped him to his boxers. Her stomach twists again, but from mortification, not nausea.

            “Our married life is getting off to a great start,” she observes, once her mouth tastes sufficiently minty and cleansed. She splashes cold water onto her face, washes her hands with soap.

            “I’ve seen worse.”

            “Have you?”

            Ben shrugs. A knock on the door keeps him from elaborating. He leaves her to wash up as he — hopefully — goes to put on trousers and answer the door.

            Rey groans and rests her forehead against the cool probably-also-marble of the sink. She doesn’t want to leave this washroom. She doesn’t want to show her face anywhere, ever again. Imagining how she might explain to Ben that she is not, in fact, normally this person, not a person who drinks to excess, not a person who marries strangers, feels like imagining a root canal. She would rather just melt and follow the water down the drain, presumably into the sewer. Right now, she thinks she would feel very much at home there.

            But Rey is an adult, responsible for her own actions and their repercussions, and she has been for a very long time. And that doesn’t change because, for once in her life, she allowed herself to make a few _extremely_ bad choices. If she has to make mistakes, better to make them with a man who apparently has a lawyer on call for these very situations. That doesn’t exactly reflect well on her possible new spouse, but it might see them out of this pickle.

            Against her better judgment, Rey glances in the mirror. She looks, as she suspected, like a wreck. The mascara she must have put on the previous evening has smudged, and her hair has reverted to its customary pre-wrangling bird’s nest. She uses one of the likely decorative hand towels to clean off her face, then borrows Ben’s bleak and masculine black brush to begin taming her hair. The hair tie she wears around her wrist at all times comes in handy here; she scoops her hair up, works it into a loose bun, musters the rest of her dignity, and goes back out to face her maybe-husband.

            Ben has returned, and is in the process of bringing their breakfast into the bedroom. Rey is surprised to see him doing that himself; surely a place this fancy would have people to do that for him. But maybe he sent those people away. She notices he found a pair of trousers somewhere, although she doesn’t linger on that for too long.

            He sets the basket of pastries down on the bedroom’s little table. The beverages are already lined up on the bureau, in front of the flat-screen television. Rey picks up a croissant from the basket and sits on the chaise lounge, nibbling at it miserably. Ben pours himself a cup of coffee; Rey watches the steam rise from it and disappear into the air.

            “Coffee smells good,” she remarks, when the awkward silence becomes too much to bear.

            “It is good,” he says. “Would you like some?”

            She hesitates, then nods; he pours her a cup, too, with little ceremony.

            “Cream?” he asks. “Sugar?”

            “Why are you being so nice to me?”

            Ben pauses; his eyes flick over her. “You’re my guest.”

            “I’m not, though. I’m a random woman you might have married.”

            “Would you like me to rage and kick you out?”

            Rey sighs. “No. Forget it.” She pauses, then says, “Just in my experience, people normally aren’t nice for no reason.” She waits for him to speak. He doesn’t. So she adds, “One sugar, please. No cream.”

            Ben adds the sugar and hands the coffee over. Rey drops her croissant in her lap and takes the cup with both hands. “Thank you.”

            “It’s nothing.”

            He takes a seat on one of the short little half-benches in front of the bed, close to her. He’s a tall man; his legs bend a bit awkwardly in front of him, but he doesn’t seem to mind. His eyes never leave her. Rey shifts on the chaise lounge, beginning to feel like she is missing something. There is an intensity to his gaze, to his whole person, like he’s a soda bottle someone’s shaken up, waiting for the cap to be twisted up so he can bubble over.

            Rey takes a sip of her coffee. It’s good. Hot. She swallows it down, then says, “I really should let my friends know I’m okay.”

            “Of course.”

            She glances around. “I don’t see my phone. Can I borrow yours, just to make a quick call?”

            Ben reaches into his pocket and hands his iPhone over without protest. More trust than she’d show a random stranger, she thinks. She leans forward and sets her coffee cup down on the little table so she can accept it.

            He asks, “Was it in your purse? I think I saw it in the foyer.”

            “Oh, thank God. Yeah, it should be. I’ll get it after I…” She pauses halfway through punching in Finn’s number. “Sorry, did you say the foyer?”

            “I did.”

            “Of this _hotel room_?”

            Ben’s mouth twitches. “Suite, yes.”

            “Right. Suite. Hotel suite.” Rey’s finger hovers above the touchscreen, prepared to press the call button, but she is unable to contain her curiosity. “I’m sorry, where exactly are we? Just so I can tell my friends where to pick me up.”

            “We’re in the Bellagio.”

            Rey drops the phone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey draws herself up to her full height. She is not a short woman, but this man must have seven or eight inches on her. Even so, she will not be intimidated. “Now hold on, Christian Grey. You can’t just decide you hate my phone and make me chuck it.”
> 
> Ben blinks. “Who?”

Why are these lights so bright?  
Oh, did we get hitched last night?  
Dressed up like Elvis  
Why am I wearing your class ring?

Don’t call your mother  
Cause now we’re partners in crime

— “Waking Up In Vegas,” Katy Perry

* * *

            “I am so sorry,” Rey babbles. “I don’t know why I did that.”

            She scrambles off the chaise lounge to pick up his iPhone, which had fallen to the floor, praying it hadn’t shattered or cracked. Thankfully, when she turns it over the screen is perfectly intact. She breathes a sigh of relief. That would be a day for him, wouldn’t it? First he wakes up married to a stranger, then said stranger pukes in his bathroom, and finally she breaks his phone. A trifecta of shite.

            The phone vibrates in her hands, and she jumps out of her skin, nearly dropping it again. “Oh!”

            “Who is it?” Ben asks.

            Rey looks down at the screen. “Someone named ‘Hux’ is FaceTiming you.”

            “Ah. It’s the lawyer. You can answer.”

            “ _Me_?”

            “If you want.”

            “Well, this should be fun.” She slides her thumb up the screen, then settles back down on the chaise, holding the phone selfie-distance from her face. “Hello, you’ve reached Ben’s phone. Rey Johnson speaking.”

            “Solo, I— oh.” The red-haired lawyer scowls at her. “It’s you.”

            “That’s what I said.” Rey frowns at the screen. “Is your name ‘Hux?’ How dreadful for you.”

            Ben has his hand curled into a fist and presses it up against his mouth. Rey can’t tell for certain, but she thinks he might be smiling. His cheeks are dimpling in a telltale way.

            “I think you may still be inebriated, Miss Johnson,” says Hux.

            “Me? Never.” Rey smiles too, playing up the poor-little-poor-girl act. She had met men like him when she was at university, and as a rule they tended not to like her because they felt that she had unrightfully usurped her place in— well, anywhere. The dislike was usually mutual. “Is that your last name? What’s your first name, then? Reginald? Hertfordshire?”

            “ _Armitage_.”

            “Oof.” Rey winces. “And let me guess, you went to public school?”

            “Could you hand me to Solo?” snaps the man who has the misfortune of being named Armitage Hux. “If you didn’t know, my time is both precious and very expensive.”

            “I didn’t, but thank you for informing me.” Rey looks off toward Ben, who is now rubbing his chin and trying not to look delighted. “Ben, your friend Armitage wants a word.”

            “Pass him over.”

            Rey does.

            “ _Solo_ ,” Hux says, icily. “If you insist on wasting my time with the gold digger—”

            “The gold digger can still hear you,” Rey says under her breath.

            “What is it?” Ben interjects. “Speak quickly. My time is also precious.”

            “Yes, far be it from me to interrupt your daily routine of hookers and blow.” Rey sees Ben’s face go red. He works his jaw, presses his lips together. Hux continues, seemingly oblivious, or perhaps willfully ignorant, “Very well. Even in Nevada, you have to sign some paperwork before they allow you to be legally wed. You can’t just be proclaimed such by— a man in an Elvis outfit or whomever it was. Did you and your… _woman_ obtain a marriage license?”

            Ben glances over the phone at Rey, who shrugs. “Don’t look at me. I can hardly remember a thing.”

            “We’ll figure it out,” Ben tells him. “What else?”

            “You had to have been married by an officiant who’s been certified to perform the ceremony, but it is Vegas,” Hux says with distaste. “You could probably walk into any chintzy hotel and find someone to marry you. Do you know who did it? Do you even know where it was done?”

            Ben mulls this over. “I remember… a few different car trips,” he muses. “But no, I’m not certain. Rey?”

            Rey shakes her head.

            “Well, those pieces of the puzzle would make my job much easier,” Hux says, with no small amount of impatience.

            “I live to serve,” Ben says dryly. “I know who has the answers. I’ll call you back.”

            “Just— text me. I’ve seen enough of your face today to last me a lifetime.”

            Ben moves to hang up, but Hux disconnects first. Rey lets a giggle slip out at the ridiculousness of it all, and when Ben gives her a questioning look, she explains, “Bit uptight, that one.”

            “He’s always been that way,” Ben informs her. “We went to college together.”

            “Where did you go?”

            “Yale.”

            “Of course you did.” Rey falls back onto the chaise lounge, letting her head loll to the side. “So who would know where we went last night? Aside from my friends, who— right, I was about to call.”

            “My driver,” Ben says, already pressing a number on his speed dial. Rey can hear ringing on the other end of the line very briefly, because Ben only has to wait approximately half a second before the person on the other end picks up. He presses the phone to his ear, barks, “Mitaka, get up here,” and jabs his finger at the touch screen to hang up with unnecessary force.

            Then he looks at Rey, as if all of this is perfectly normal conduct for a perfectly normal person.

            “All right,” Rey says, uneasiness curdling her stomach. “I really should ring my friends, though. Let me just nip out to the ‘foyer’ and grab my phone.”

            “You can use mine.”

            “No, no,” Rey protests, getting up from the chaise. He may have been generous with her so far, but she doesn’t want to be in the debt of a man who thinks he can order people around like that. She is suddenly extremely conscious of how short her dress is, and tugs it down her thighs. “Really, that’s… fine. I don’t want to drop it again. It’s probably worth more than I am, and woe betide me if it breaks.”

            His mouth twitches, she notices, with her use of “woe betide.” And she is fairly certain he had been laughing when she was on the phone with Hux. So he does have a sense of humor. The knowledge heartens her somewhat, even if it’s not enough to completely put her at ease.

            “If we’re married, what’s mine is yours,” he points out.

            “We don’t know that yet, though. So I’d rather not take any chances.”

            “Fair enough.” Ben stands. “Do you want me to show you where it is?”

            “No, I’m sure I can find it.” Rey brushes past him to the door of the bedroom. “It’s a hotel room. How big can it be?”

            She opens the door into a dining area, and exclaims, “Oh, you’ve got to be _kidding_ me!”

* * *

            The part of the suite Rey has not yet seen has what the hosts on those home improvement shows would call an open-concept design. The dining area near where Rey stands features a table that seats four, sumptuous green chairs, and crystalline overhead lighting. Beyond that is what she presumes to be the entertainment area, complete with a generous white sectional and two more chairs, white this time, arranged in front of a flat screen TV. The floors are marble, or they look close enough to marble to fool Rey in her still-hungover state. Around the corner, in what must be the foyer, Rey thinks she glimpses a powder room. Two and a half washrooms! For a _hotel suite_!

            If that’s not enough, the whole place is decorated with rugs and lamps and vases and sculptures and— even framed artwork, mostly close-ups of dewey flowers. Rey’s head practically swivels on her shoulders as she tries to take it all in. There, out the two massive windows, she can clearly see not only the entire Las Vegas strip, but also a picture-perfect view of the famous Bellagio fountains. As it is not yet the afternoon, the fountains have not yet begun their choreographed routines, but Rey is sure that if she sticks around for any reason she’ll be treated to a light show.

            “Jesus, this is unbelievable,” she says. She squints at the corner where she assumes the foyer must be and notices yet another set of chairs, taller than the others, lined up right by it. “You have a wet bar in your _room_?”

            “Yes,” says Ben, who has followed her out into the dining area. “And I think that’s your purse.”

            The purse sitting on the wet bar is, in fact, Rey’s purse. There would be no mistaking it for anyone else’s purse. Rey bought it at a secondhand store shortly before she moved to the States. It isn’t designer, and its brown leather has cracked in a few places, but it can fit everything she needs and then some, and she tries to maintain its upkeep as best she can. But seeing it there on the spotless bar top, Rey realizes how out of place it looks in a hotel suite that’s at least four times the size of her grad school dorm, how incongruous it is with the polish of this place. How incongruous _she_ is, with the polish of this place.

            Rey also spies the little knit shrug she’d been wearing the previous night laying on the floor. She exhales through her mouth. Not too far away are her heels, silver to match her dress and not _too_ high — three inches at most. She had looked like such an amateur next to Jess Pava, who’d gone out in five-inch heels no problem. A bit closer to the dining area are a pair of men’s trousers, crumpled in a heap. “Aha,” she says, averting her eyes. “Sorry, that must have been my doing. I get a little enthusiastic when I’m…”

            Helpfully, Ben picks up the slack when she trails off. “I think it was you, yes.”

            She cocks her head at him. “Do you remember that bit?”

            “Not clearly.”

            “I guess that makes two of us. At least we’re in the same boat.”

            “Yes,” says Ben, but it sounds hollow. “You really don’t remember— anything?”

            She shakes her head and goes to the wet bar to pick up her purse. “Barely. I remember drinks with my friends, and then it kind of fades to black.” A beat of silence, during which Ben doesn’t comment, compels her to continue. “But it’s not all bad. I mean, now we have the fun mystery of whether or not we’re married to solve.”

            “True.”

            “ _And_ it seems pretty clear that despite my drunk self’s best efforts, we didn’t actually have sex. So that’s good.”

            “Mm.”

            “I mean,” says Rey, fumbling around in her purse for her phone just as she fumbles with her words. “Not that you’re not— what I mean is that people should really only have sex if they can both remember it in the morning. And we wouldn’t have been able to, clearly. That’s all I meant.”

            “Right.”

            “Ah, finally!” Rey exclaims, producing the phone from her purse at last. She taps the power button. Nothing happens. “It’s dead.” Rey taps the power button again, as if that will help a damn thing. Of course it’s dead. She groans. “Sorry, I’ve already asked so much of you. If you have an iPhone charger…“

            “Right there,” he says, nodding at one plugged into the wall above a glass-topped sideboard. “It’s all yours.”

            “Great. Perfect.” She doubles back to the dining area to plug her phone in. Ben continues to hover a few feet away, seemingly unsure of what to do with his hands. Rey doesn’t blame him, after all she just said about not remembering anything about the previous night and it being a good thing they didn’t have sex. She is pretty sure nothing could make this situation more awkward than it already is.

            She is wrong.

            “That’s your phone?” Ben asks, peering over her shoulder, and she hears the clear note of incredulity in his voice.

            “The very same,” Rey replies, as she plugs it into his charger.

            “That’s— unacceptable.”

            Rey’s head jerks up. “What?”

            Ben’s deep voice is near-toneless, as though he’s stating an inarguable fact. “You need a new phone.”

            “This phone works just fine, thank you.”

            “Still,” he insists, “if you’re married to me—”

            “ _If_ ,” she repeats. “And there’s no guarantee that we’ll _stay_ that way.”

            Ben disregards this completely. “You can’t use that phone. I’ll buy you a new one.”

            Rey draws herself up to her full height. She is not a short woman, but this man must have seven or eight inches on her. Even so, she will not be intimidated. “Now hold on,  Christian Grey . You can’t just decide you hate my phone and make me chuck it.“

            Ben blinks. “Who?”

            “Oh, err.” Rey stumbles in her righteous fury. “Christian Grey? _Fifty Shades of Grey_? No?” Ben shakes his head. “They were books _and_ movies, Ben.”

            “I’ve never read or seen them.”

            “Right, of course,” Rey mumbles. “I definitely didn’t either. The point _is_ , everyone knows they were about a rich, controlling stalker who insisted on buying things for the girl he was pursuing that she didn’t want or need. And it was a means of control. It’s _always_ a means of control. That’s why you’re not buying me a new phone.”

            Ben works his jaw again. A nervous tick, maybe? That’s the second time she’s noticed him doing it. “Do you think I’m a rich, controlling stalker?”

            “Honestly?” Rey sighs. “I… don’t know. I don’t know you at all. So for all I know, you _could_ be.”

            “Yes,” Ben says, and there’s irritation in his tone, but also something else that Rey can’t identify. “I guess I could.”

            Just then there is a knock from the other end of the suite. Ben goes to answer, and Rey follows him into the foyer, not keen to be left out of any discussion that might concern her.

            At the door stands a round-faced, dark-haired young man dressed in a very nice suit. He looks a bit disheveled— it’s possible he wasn’t expecting to be called this early after what was undoubtedly a late night. He also, Rey notes, is glancing around the room with a nervous glint in his eye, like a rabbit cornered by a predator. There is a worried crease to his brow, and his speech is somewhat hesitant.

            “Mr. Solo,” he says. “Sorry for the delay. I just—”

            “Don’t,” says Ben, cutting him off at the pass. “Just tell me where you drove us last night.”

            “Everywhere I drove you?”

            “Everywhere you took me and the girl.”

            Mitaka peers around Ben’s hulking form. Upon seeing Rey, his shoulders droop at least two inches down from his ears and his forehead smooths out some. “Hello, ma’am. I didn’t see you there.” 

            Rey gives him a small, sheepish wave. She doesn’t want to know what she was like the last time this man saw her, and is a bit mortified to even contemplate it.

            But Mitaka doesn’t seem to hold her drunken behavior against her. He straightens again, and turns his attention back to his employer. “I drove you both to the Clark County Marriage Bureau, sir.”

            Ben stands there, his hands folded in front of him. For a solid ten seconds, he says nothing. The room goes so quiet that Rey’s own breathing sounds ragged and harsh in her ears. Then Ben asks, “And then?”

            “A— and then you asked to be dropped off on Fremont Street, sir,” Mitaka stutters. “Very nearby. You called me when you were finished. There were two other men with you, but they took a separate car.”

            “If I had to guess, Finn and Poe,” Rey tells Ben. “My friends.”

            But Ben is deadly silent. Rey senses the storm brewing around him, can almost see the dark clouds descend. “Why did we go to Fremont Street?”

            Mitaka shifts uneasily, and says, “I think it was to get married, sir.”

            “Did that seem like a good idea to you?”

            “Um.” Mitaka’s brow creases again. “I don’t—”

            “You should know _better_!” Ben shouts. Mitaka flinches, and so does Rey; she isn’t proud of it. Ben doesn’t seem to care. “Taking us to get married! Rey doesn’t fucking remember anything, and—”

            “Oi!” Rey exclaims, her anger finally bubbling over. Both Ben and Mitaka startle, as though they had forgotten she was there. “That is _enough_. It is this man’s job to drive you, not to make judgment calls. You told him to drive somewhere and he drove us there. You can’t get pissed at him for doing his goddamn job!”

            Ben’s mouth hangs open. “I—” he begins, then he apparently thinks better of it and shuts his trap. “Excuse me.”

            He stalks off into the bedroom. A few seconds later, Rey hears a door slam— one of the washrooms. Then comes a solid minute of wordless yelling which the closed door cannot quite muffle. No, not entirely wordless; Rey thinks she can make out a handful of profanities artfully mixed in.

            Rey glances at Mitaka. “ _Jesus_. I can’t believe he talks to you like that.”

            Mitaka shrugs. “You get used to it, ma’am.”

            “I don’t plan to,” Rey mutters.

            “He left the room first,” Mitaka points out. “That’s a positive, where he’s concerned.”

            Rey raises her eyebrows. “So, he does this… a lot?”

            “Yes, ma’am.”

            “Is he— violent?”

            “Oh, no, ma’am!” Mitaka exclaims. “Not to me, at least. He just has a temper and he expresses it through… volume.”

            “Right,” Rey says, deeply troubled. “Does he have a therapist, or— I mean, is he— never mind.” She sighs for what feels like the thirtieth time that day, then looks at Mitaka and decides to just get out with it. “Is he a good person, your boss?”

            Mitaka hesitates, then says, “I don’t think I can answer that question, ma’am. He just pays me to drive him around, and sometimes to run errands for him. Dry cleaning and the like.”

            That non-answer that gives Rey her answer, loud and clear. “Well,” she says, her stomach sinking in dread as she wonders again who this person is that she’s gotten herself mixed up with. “Can I get you anything? Coffee or juice? You came all the way up here.”

            “That’s kind of you, ma’am, but I’ll be on my way.”

            “‘Course.” Rey hugs her arms to herself, looks down. “I’m… sorry about all this.”

            “It’s all right.” He gives her a sidelong look, as though he is worried about her, or possibly worried that she might be crazy. “Are you really married to him?”

            “I don’t know,” she admits. “We’re trying to figure that out.”

            Mitaka takes a moment to contemplate his response. At last, he settles on, “Good luck, ma’am.”

            “Thank you, Mitaka,” Rey says, a bit pathetically.

            Mitaka nods like this is all in a day’s work for him, and closes the door behind him when he leaves.

* * *

            Rey returns to the sideboard where her phone rests, still charging. It’s now up to a solid seven percent battery, so she turns it on, keeping it plugged in as long as she can in case she needs to call a quick getaway Lyft. She peeks into the bedroom, but there’s no sign of Ben, and the washroom door is still shut fast. It sounds like a tap might be running, which is good. Harder for him to overhear her conversation.

            She quickly dials Finn and brings the phone to her ear. The screen sticks to her cheek slightly; she must be sweating. On the other end of the line, Finn’s phone rings once, twice. “Come on, come on,” she hisses, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Finn, pick up. _Please_ pick up.”

            After what seems like forever, she hears the click of Finn answering his phone and then some muffled noises as he fumbles with it. “Rey,” he says, groggily. It’s some small consolation that Finn sounds just as miserable as she feels. She nearly melts with relief at the sound of his voice. “What _time_ is it?”

            “That’s not important. I need you to come get me.”

            “Woah— what? Are you okay? Where are you?”

            “I’m at the _Bellagio_ ,” she says in a furious whisper.

            “What?” There’s a pause, and she can picture Finn squeezing his eyes shut, rubbing his brow bone in an attempt to dispel his headache. “ _Right_ , with that guy.”

            “‘That guy?’ You knew there was a guy?”

            “Yeah, the one you met when we were at that club. I think he was in the VIP section? I remember you dancing with him, but everything else is kind of fuzzy.”

            “It went further than dancing,” Rey tells him. “But _I_ don’t remember a thing. Apparently I was blackout drunk.”

            “You—” It takes a second to fully sink in for Finn. “Oh. Shit, that’s— Are you okay? Do you need me to call the police?”

            “What?” Rey blinks. She also needs a moment to work out the implication there. Clearly neither of them is running at full speed. “No, nothing like that happened. I mean, we didn’t sleep together. Apparently other things happened. Apparently I got married.”

            “You got married?” Finn takes a second to think about this. “Now that you mention it, that does sound familiar. Yeah, I think…”

            “Is that Rey?” calls a distant voice. “Ask her how the high life is treating her. I hope she hasn’t forgotten us little people.”

            “Is that Poe?” Rey asks. “Ask him what the hell he’s talking about.”

            Finn turns his face away from the speaker to say, “Rey wants to know what the hell you’re talking about.”

            “That guy she ‘married’ last night,” Poe says. It sounds like he finds all of this a tremendous joke. “Did you see the car that came to pick them up after? It was insane. I think it was a—”

            “I don’t care,” Rey says, but she is vaguely relieved to find someone who knows what the hell went down yesterday. “I really, truly, could not care less about what kind of car we drove off in. Finn, could you tell Poe that I’m at the—”

            “I’d better give you the phone,” Finn says to Poe.

            “Oh my God, just put me on speaker—”

            But Finn has already handed his cell to Poe, who sounds far more chipper than any person who drank as much as he did last night rightfully should. “Rey, hey!” he says cheerfully. “How’s married life treating you?”

            “You can’t just say that like it’s a normal thing!” she snaps. “I was so drunk I married a stranger and I don’t even _remember_ it, Poe.”

            “You don’t remember?” She hears Poe pull his face away from the phone to say to Finn, “She doesn’t remember.”

            “Guys, that isn’t the point. You have to come meet me here. I think he might be a lunatic. Who gets married to a girl who is obviously plastered out of her mind? Who does that?”

            There’s silence on the other end of the call.

            “Hello?” she asks.

            Then Poe says very slowly, “Rey, the thing is… you actually asked him to marry _you_.”


	3. Chapter 3

Oh, if you only knew  
What we've been up to  
I guarantee you'd keep it secret  
So give it to me now  
We're lost in a dream now  
Do it (5-4-3-2) one more time

In the Vegas lights  
Where villains spend the weekend  
The deep end  
We're swimming with the sharks until we drown  
The Vegas lights  
The lies and affectations  
Sensation  
We're winning until the curtain's coming down

— "Vegas Lights," Panic! at the Disco

* * *

            “What do you mean, ‘I asked him to marry _me_?’”

            “Just what I said,” says Poe. “You proposed to him. I was there. I saw it happen.”

            Finn says, “What’s that? What’s she saying?”

            “Here, I’ll put her on speaker.”

            “That’s what I asked for to begin with.” Rey shifts her weight from one bare foot to the other and leans heavily against the sideboard where her phone is charging. She glances into the bedroom again and checks the washroom door. Still shut. Instead of a tap, she now hears a much more substantial rush of water. Ben must have stepped into the shower. Or maybe he just doesn’t want her to hear any more of his screaming.

            She can’t worry about that right now, so she turns her attention back to the phone. “Start from the beginning,” she says. “Whatever you remember. Assume I’m totally useless.”

            “Okay,” Poe says. “Let me just— get organized.”

            “What, do you have notecards or something?”

            “No, it’s just a lot to sort through. A lot going on up in here.” Rey cannot see Poe, but she can picture him tapping his temple, and scoffs. He is quiet for a good five seconds, and then says, “All right. Do you remember winning at the slot machine?”

            “Yeah, I’ve got that much,” says Rey. “What was it, a hundred bucks?”

            “Something like that. So I said drinks were on you, and we left the casino and went to go find a place to, well, drink. And dance. We wound up in this club nearby. You had a cocktail in hand and we were all, y’know, dancing, and then you backed up and spilled your drink on this guy.”

            “I did _what_?”

            “Your very expensive martini all went down the back of his jacket. But he seemed very chill about it. Even asked if he could buy you another, which was kind of a smooth recovery.”

            “That doesn’t sound like the Ben I’ve met,” Rey says, mostly to herself. Maybe prior to the incident with Mitaka, she would have thought that the guy she woke up with was calm and collected. Now, she doesn’t believe he’d take any of life’s inconveniences in stride.

            Poe continues his story. “Anyway, while you were getting that figured out, we, uh, realized that Rose had too much to drink. Finn had to hold her hair back.”

            “Oh, no,” Rey murmurs. “Poor Rose.”

            “Yeah. Jess and Kay took her back to the motel. And in all the excitement, we lost track of you.”

            That explained… some of it. Rose Tico is arguably Rey’s most sensible friend. If she had been with them, she could have explained to Finn and Poe in no uncertain terms that they shouldn’t let Rey marry someone she just met. “But you must have found me again, if you know how the proposal happened.”

            “Oh, we found you. You and mystery man were all over each other.”

            “I remember _that_ ,” Finn mutters.

            “But we didn’t interrupt. Bro code. We might have followed you back to the VIP lounge, though, because… I mean, we had to make sure you were okay, right?”

            “Poe really wanted to be a VIP,” Finn translates, and Rey, despite how awful she feels, lets out a little titter.

            “Well, that’s— look, it’s _Vegas_ , you only live once…”

            “Not the point,” Rey interjects. “Focus up, Poe.”

            “Yeah, yeah, okay. You guys were mostly just talking back there. Both totally out of it. Then the proposal happens, we all shout ‘mazel tov’ and spend a few minutes Googling where to get married in Las Vegas. Turns out you actually need a license, so you guys went off to get it and told us to meet you at some chapel. That took forever, because you had to wait in line with everyone else who decided they wanted to get married at 11 pm. But you met us there eventually. Finn and I found a bar to hang out in in the meantime.”

            “And then?”

            “We watched you guys get declared husband and wife. Vegas-style.”

            Rey waits for more detail, and when it becomes apparent that none is forthcoming, she asks, “Is that it?”

            “To tell the truth, we were all pretty blitzed,” Poe admits. “It kind of fades out around then.”

            “Right.” Rey’s voice seems to resonate in the space between her ears. It’s too loud. Everything is much too loud. “How are you so _with it_?”

            “I already had my cup of coffee.”

            “You are so full of shit,” Finn says, but fondly. “I saw you pouring whiskey into that mug.”

            “… And a little hair of the dog to set me straight. You want some?”

            “No,” Finn replies, but then on second thought he adds, “Well, maybe later.”

            Rey sighs. “Do either of you recall anything about where we got married? Ben’s driver says it might have been somewhere on Fremont Street.”

            “Hmm, not the address, but I could probably pick the guy out of a lineup.” Poe hums thoughtfully to himself. “I think he was a DJ…”

            “No, no, no.” She hears Finn snap his fingers. “His _name_ was DJ. I remember that. I also remember thinking he was a complete and total sleazebag.”

            “And the least convincing Elvis I have ever seen,” adds Poe. “Like he wasn’t even trying. But we were all so shit-faced that it hardly mattered. Thinking about it now, though, he was a _really_ bad Elvis.”

            Rey groans. “So I was married in Las Vegas by a terrible Elvis impersonator. As if this couldn’t get any more cliche.”

            “When you go off the rails, you really go off the rails,” says Finn.

            “Work hard, party hard,” Poe adds. “Except you never let loose, so when you stop working you just become a whole explosion of… party.”

            Rey sets her elbows down on the sideboard, hides her face in one hand and groans, “This is _horrible_.”

            “C’mon, Rey,” Poe says, cajoling her a bit. “I wouldn’t be surprised if shitty Elvis didn’t even count as like, someone who could really marry you. He way overcharged your groom for the wedding. I mean, two hundred bucks for some quick ‘I dos’ and a bad serenade?”

            Rey leans into her phone’s cracked screen. “We are trying to figure out if it’s legitimate, actually. Ben’s got his lawyer on the case.”

            “He has a _lawyer_?” Finn exclaims. “On speed dial, or— what?”

            “Yeah. I dunno. I really don’t know what to make of this guy. He was nice to me, but he seems like kind of an arsehole to everyone else. And a lawyer on speed dial is never a good sign. What if he’s involved in something criminal?”

            “What if he’s in oil?” Poe speculates. “You might get a lot of money and a lawyer out of that. Consulting? Real estate?”

            “Hopefully not politics,” Finn adds.

            “Hey,” says Poe, who is in the process of obtaining a late masters in political science. “I heard that.”

            “I know you did. I’m _right here_.”

            Rey hears the water in the bathroom shut off. “Thank you,” she says. “You guys have been really helpful. Just one more thing— Poe, how were you so sure that I’m the one who proposed?”

            “Oh,” Poe says. “I got it on video.”

* * *

            The grainy cellphone video has been run through a Snapchat filter that stamped the words “FRIDAY NIGHT!” in millennial pink in one corner and added a border of twinkling sparkles. Poe meant to send it to their absent friends Jess, Rose, and Kay, but had apparently also saved it to his phone in his drunken confusion. It’s dark, but Rey can make out two people sitting under dim lighting, cuddled up close in a booth.

            Finn’s voice whispers from offscreen, “They’ve been doing this for an hour!”

            Poe—it must be Poe—shushes him, loudly, conspicuously. The camera slowly zooms in, and Rey sees herself and Ben come into focus. Ben is dressed in all black: black shoes, black trousers, and what looks like the same shirt he’d been wearing that morning. Notably, no jacket. Rey sits sideways pressed up against him, with her head on his shoulder and her legs over his lap. She recognizes her short silver dress and her high, messy bun. She appears to be saying something to Ben, who has his face pressed against her temple. This could certainly be called canoodling, but there’s less making out involved than Rey had expected.

            “Who even is this guy?” Finn grumbles. “I don’t like this guy.”

            “You don’t like anyone Rey dates.”

            “That’s because she’s so good. Nobody’s _good_ enough for her.”

            “Yeah-huh,” says Poe, not buying it. “Okay, quiet! I can’t hear a thing.”

            They quiet down. Rey hears the distant thump of dubstep bass in the background. Then her head shifts on Ben’s shoulder, and her own watery voice says, “They all leave, Ben. Everyone leaves. And then I’m alone again.”

            Ben, Rey notices, looks like he’s on a completely different plane of existence, as content as a cat sprawled out in the sun. He has his nose against her hair, and closes his eyes occasionally to breathe her in. His hand rests over her dress, on her thigh, and he keeps brushing up and down the sequins there with his large hand, a strange, repetitive motion. “You’re not alone,” he says. “I won’t leave.”

            “You won’t?” The Rey in the video looks up at him, nearly bumping his nose with her own. “You’ll stay? Would you stay with me forever?”

            Ben looks back down at her with staggering intensity. Even in the hotel suite, just watching the playback, Rey inhales softly. Sure, he must have been high out of his mind, but at that moment in time he seemed completely convinced of what he had to do. “Yes,” he swears. “Forever.”

            Out of frame, Finn asks Poe, “Should we be filming this?”

            “Rose will never believe what she missed without evidence,” Poe points out. “I mean, this guy’s basically vowed to be hers ‘til the end of time.”

            “That’s it?” Rey mutters. “I really don’t think that counts as a marriage proposal.”

            But she needn’t have worried, because just then her past self reaches up to take Ben’s face in both her hands and says, “Prove it, Ben.”

            Ben blinks, and a euphoric smile spreads across his face. “Now?”

            “Right now.” Rey’s voice has the utmost conviction. “Marry me. We never—” She sniffles. “We never have to be alone again.”

* * *

            The door opens, and Rey hears Ben step out of the washroom. She hastily closes the video, which still has a few seconds left to play. He doesn’t remark on it, so she assumes she’s in the clear, and he hadn’t heard anything.

            “So,” she says, turning toward him, “are you ready to— augh!”

            She doesn’t know what she was expecting, but somehow Ben with only a towel wrapped around his waist wasn’t it, even though her brain had registered that he was in the shower. She notices his broad shoulders and muscular chest before quickly turning back around to give him privacy. At least she’s learned one new thing about him: he clearly works out. He’s not lean, like a sprinter, but _massive_. It looks as though he’s lifting heavy weights, and often.

            “Is there a robe you can put on?” she asks. “I feel like the Bellagio should have its own robes. Probably monogrammed. Monogrammed robes. That you could wear.”

            “You’re not wrong,” Ben replies. He sounds a bit guarded. She hears him shuffling around behind her. When she peeks over her shoulder she sees that he has donned boxer shorts and is pulling on a fluffy white bathrobe, and breathes a sigh of relief. She doesn’t need to be distracted by the sight of her maybe-husband’s bare, glistening pecs.

            When he’s decent, Rey turns around to face him head-on again. He is towel-drying his jet-black hair, which is soaked from his shower. His robe does indeed have a cursive “B” embroidered on it. She exhales through her nose, and says, “All right. So are you ready to have a conversation like a civilized person?”

            “Are you?”

            “I wasn’t the one who raised my voice,” she huffs. And then amends, “Well, not to start.”

            “Mm.” Ben tosses the towel aside. “I didn’t raise it at you.”

            “That doesn’t _matter_. Poor Mitaka didn’t do anything wrong, and he was scared out of his wits. He probably thought you were going to fire him!”

            “He’s lasted longer than most.”

            “I believe it,” Rey mutters under her breath. “But either way, it’s not his fault that we got married. Even if he hadn’t driven us, we could have just called an Uber. You can’t blame him for mistakes we made just because he’s a convenient scapegoat.”

            “You don’t have to stay,” he says abruptly. “Since you so clearly don’t want to be here.”

            “What?”

            “Go back to your friends. I can text you with our marital status when Hux gets back to us. I assume even if we are married, there will be some option for annulment, since you were clearly incapable of consenting to a union.”

            “No, that’s not—” Rey flexes her fingers and takes a second. She doesn’t understand how past her, inebriated her, had gotten along so swimmingly with clearly one of the most vexing people on the planet. “No. I’m not going anywhere until this is settled. So don’t bother trying to get rid of me.”

            Ben blinks. “I… all right.”

            Rey puts her phone down on the sideboard, walks back into the bedroom and sits down on the chaise lounge once again. Ben remains standing, observing her closely with those gold-brown eyes.

            “Okay,” she says. “First things first: I’m not usually the way I was when we met last night. I don’t usually open up that easily and spill my guts to people I’ve never met.”

            “I noticed,” Ben says. She can feel him closing off from her. He’s only across the room, but he might as well be the next state over, for how distant he is. “You don’t owe me an explanation, Rey. You were drunk. I was— foolish.”

            “You seemed pretty high too, to be fair.”

            “I… was.” His eyes narrow. “How do you know that?”

            “One of my friends was Snapchatting my other friends. He sent me the video.”

            Ben doesn’t move, but Rey notices the slight bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallows. “Ah.”

            “I told him to get rid of it, in case you were worried about it getting out for any reason.”

            “Thank you.”

            “I mean, _I_ wanted it gone, but— anyway.” Rey shakes her head. “That’s not important. I never asked you how much you remembered from last night, but if it’s anything at all, you probably met me as a very… different person.”

            Ben just looks at her.

            And it suddenly occurs to Rey that she had assumed all along that he was just as in the dark as she, so she asks, “ _Do_ you remember anything at all?”

            “A lot,” he admits. “More at the beginning. I remember meeting you. I remember some of our conversation. I remember us driving, as I said, and I remember— holding you while we waited in line at must have been the marriage bureau. And then swaying with you as someone sang ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love.’”

            There’s a weight to his voice as though he’s recounting his dearest memories, even though this had all happened just last night when they were completely impaired. He continues, “After that, there isn’t much. I don’t remember coming back here, although I think I do remember you pulling at my clothes.”

            Rey feels herself blushing. She looks down. “Right.”

            “But I figured out pretty quickly you weren’t the same sober.” He turns away, goes to the bureau, and pulls out a fresh shirt.

            Rey fidgets on the chaise, feeling oddly guilty. She reminds herself that this man’s emotional management isn’t her problem. Still, it’s one thing to be disappointed in her for not meeting expectations, and another to realize that the girl you might have _married_ is actually a completely different person in the light of day. He must feel— cheated. But again! It’s not as though women come with warranties. He can’t just send her back to the vendor because he doesn’t like her. They both made decisions that they regret: she asked that they marry, he agreed, and now they’re stuck like this until they figure out what’s going on.

            She clears her throat. “I think we should declare a truce. Until things are settled.”

            “Fine.”

            “So, let’s start over.” Rey pauses. “I’m Rey. Rey Johnson.”

            “Ben Solo,” says Ben. He sheds the robe, briefly allowing Rey another glimpse of his bare torso before he pulls the shirt over his head. She rolls her eyes to the ceiling, but her cheeks grow hot again.

            “I’m twenty-two, and I’m from England—obviously—but I live in New York for now,” she continues. “I’m getting my masters in conservation.”

            “Conservation?” Ben asks. He sounds genuinely curious. His hands pull at the hem of his shirt—a cotton t-shirt that somehow looks more expensive than half of the clothes in Rey’s wardrobe. “Environmental?”

            “No, actually. Conservation as in… art restoration and preservation. I make old things new again. As new as they can be.”

            “That sounds very specialized.”

            “Yes, it is.” She watches him step into his trousers one foot at a time. Just like anyone else. “And what about you?”

            “What about me?”

            “I don’t know, some… facts about you.”

            He comes and sits near her again, on that same little stool. There is an odd rigidity to his posture that makes him seem completely ill at ease with his surroundings. With her. “I’m thirty-one,” he says. “I’m originally from Massachusetts, outside Boston. Now I split my time between a few different places. You already know I went to Yale. I also have an MBA from Harvard.”

            “That’s very impressive,” she says, allowing him a little smile. “What do you do?”

            “Do?”

            “For work. I assume it’s equally impressive, given the luxury of our surroundings.”

            “Oh,” he says. He looks at her, and he shrugs.

            Rey frowns. “You don’t… know?”

            “I have a number of profitable investments,” Ben explains. “The money was my grandfather’s. My mother and her brother didn’t want it, so it was put in a trust for me. It should keep me until…” He shrugs again.

            “Okay,” Rey says slowly, as she processes all of this. “But what do you _do_?”

            He fixes his gaze on her. “I find interesting ways to spend it.”

            “So you’re— the idle rich.”

            “You could say that.”

            “Oh, lord,” says Rey, casting her eyes to the heavens once more. “You might have said that you were a philanthropist or something.”

            She has clearly puzzled him. “I… give to charity.”

            “Why not lead with that?”

            “Because you asked what I do, and this is what I do.” There’s no small amount of tension bleeding into his voice. “Most women would be happy to marry into wealth.”

            “We don’t know that we’re _married_ ,” Rey reminds him yet again. “And no, I’m not happy to hear that I’m married to a— a wastrel!”

            Ben raises his eyebrows. “A wastrel?”

            “Shove off. You know what I mean.” Rey breathes out, an angry puff of hot air. “I mean, with all of those resources you could do _something_. You could— I don’t know. Save the pandas. Cure cancer? Sponsor kids to go to university?”

            “You’re an idealist,” Ben remarks. “Naive. What’s the point of any of it?”

            “The point?” Rey repeats, incredulously. “What do you mean? The point is to help other people! The point is to do some _good_!”

            “We all die in the end.”

            “Oh, my _God_.” Rey stands up from the chaise, paces the length of the bedroom. It suddenly feels quite small. She stares out the window, watching the Bellagio fountains, and lets her irritation wash over her. It’s not as if she’ll have to see this guy ever again after they sort out their marriage issue.

            “Forget it,” she says, at last. “Look, I just talked to my friends. They said they might be able to identify the guy who married us. I was thinking about heading to Fremont Street and meeting them there, seeing if we could figure this all out.”

            “I’ll go with you,” Ben says, immediately.

            Rey stares at him. “Really?”

            “Of course. I said I wouldn’t leave you.”

            “Well I—” Rey swallows. “I just assumed that didn’t count anymore.”

            “Why wouldn’t it count?”

            Rey laughs, a high, nervous laugh. Who is this man? What had she seen in him at that club? What had he seen in _her_ , that would make him want to stay by her side even after all this arguing? “Whatever you were on last night,” she says, “I think I could use a hit.”

            “Oh.” Ben doesn’t seem to consider this an abnormal ask. “It’s early, but I should have some—”

            “I’m joking, Ben,” she assures him quickly, before he can begin searching for a stash. “But maybe later, if you have weed, or…”

            “It wasn’t weed.”

            “Right.” Rey’s mouth decides to run away without her. “Don’t tell me it was— I don’t know, heroin?”

            “Ecstasy,” he clarifies. “MDMA.”

            “Huh, okay.” She shrugs. “That isn’t so bad. I mean, I’ve never done it, but I feel like it’s somewhere between pot and heroin. Right?”

            “It’s not comparable,” Ben says carefully. “It helps me feel— better. Much better.”

            “Did you ever think you’d feel good enough to marry a total stranger?”

            Ben lets out a little huff of breath that might be a laugh, or the start of one. “No,” he says. “Never. And I definitely never thought I’d marry a stranger who’s angry at me for being rich.”

            “I’m not— mad that you’re rich.” The words feel like a nonsensical jumble on Rey’s tongue. “I do have two conditions, though, if we’re going out together.”

            He nods. “Name them.”

            “One.” Rey puts up one finger. “No more being rude to your staff. Or waitstaff in general. Or anyone who’s providing you with a service. They don’t exist so you can push them around. Got it?”

            Ben’s nostrils flare, but he says, “Fine. And the second?”

            “Two.” She holds up two fingers. “We need to stop somewhere on the way so I can get clothes. I can’t just walk around in my clubbing outfit all day.”

            To her surprise, she sees Ben’s mouth quirk up at the corner as his fleeting sense of humor makes its reappearance. “Good thing you married rich.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Is that how you see me?” Rey asks. “As a charity case?”
> 
> Ben shakes his head, and, without quite looking at her, he says, “I think you’re someone who deserves nice things.”

Ooh, Las Vegas, ain't no place for a poor boy like me  
Ooh, Las Vegas, ain't no place for a poor boy like me  
Every time I hit your crystal city  
You know you're gonna make a wreck out of me

— "Ooh Las Vegas," Gram Parsons

* * *

            During Ben and Rey’s quick walk-through of the Bellagio’s indoor luxury mall, Cantonica seems to promise the widest selection of women’s apparel that can be worn by an actual human person planning to do normal activities like walk, or eat, or breathe. But that’s before Ben calls an unlucky salesperson over to attend to Rey while he does other Ben things.

           It quickly becomes apparent that although Cantonica does have a decent variety of clothing, from dresses to tops to coats to skirts, almost all of it is branded in some way. Rey is presented with what looked like a perfectly acceptable high-end varsity jacket, only to turn around and find that it has “Cantonica” bedazzled on the back in letters that look like they might be melting. Well, not bedazzled. Whatever the rich person equivalent of bedazzled might be. Maybe the stones are all real. At any rate, Rey would feel very foolish wearing it out of the store.

            The sales associate, a tall, well-groomed brunette named Natalie, was probably perfectly prepared to deal with difficult customers; she likely expected to face one when Ben called her over. She came trotting to them with an unshakeable white smile plastered on her face, ready for anything. Anything except for Rey, her discomfort with every part of the luxury shopping experience, and her aversion to almost the entire in-store women’s ready-to-wear collection.

            “I really am sorry,” Rey says, handing back the third jacket. “Just a little less conspicuous with the logo? Thank you. Sorry.”

            “You don’t have to apologize, Miss Johnson,” Natalie assures her. “I’ll be right back with more options.”

            “Just jeans and a t-shirt, really,” Rey calls after her dismally. She is glad she showered before leaving Ben’s suite to try on all these nice clothes, although she finds she’s already working up a sweat. There is no way on earth she can afford any of this, but Ben likely won’t let her pay for a single thing — he’s already said as much. He doesn’t seem to understand the degree to which that makes her feel profoundly ill at ease. Maybe she can think of the items as on loan, and she’ll return them to him at the end of the day for him to do with as he will.

            She sinks down on her little cushioned stool in the fitting room, wearing the exceptionally soft robe that had been provided to her, which also has Cantonica on the back in rhinestones, of course. She feels like a boxer about to enter the ring, sponsored by a luxury high-fashion brand.

            Outside of the fitting room, she hears Ben’s unmistakably deep voice say, “She’s back there? Good. No, I’ll go see her.”

            Rey springs to her feet and pulls the robe tighter to her body, then throws the curtain aside before he has the chance. He blinks, slightly taken aback by the sight of her standing there. He holds a slim orange box in one of his hands.

            “Ben,” she says. “They have a one-person-per-fitting room rule for a _reason_.”

            He straightens, and she thinks she actually sees his cheeks redden. “Ah,” he says. “I thought you’d be dressed.”

            “Well, I’m not,” Rey says, keeping the curtain back with one hand and her robe closed with the other. “Teaches you to assume things. You know what they say about doing that.”

            He cocks one eyebrow at her. “Makes an ass out of ‘you’ and ‘me?’”

            Despite herself, Rey smirks a little bit. “Exactly.”

            Natalie rushes back, holding a few more garments in her arms. “I am so sorry, Miss Johnson,” she says. “I told him he couldn’t come in there.”

            “It’s all right,” Rey assures her. “It’s not your fault that he feels like he can stick his nose in where it doesn’t belong.”

            Ben exhales. “I’ll wait around the corner.”

            “Don’t bother. You’re already here. Just— don’t come in.” Rey turns and accepts the garments from Natalie, and says, “Thank you. And sorry, again.”

            Natalie nods and leaves, and Rey pulls the curtain closed. “Oh, this is _much_ better!” she exclaims. She enthusiastically begins pulling on a pair of simple leggings that, thankfully, only seem to bear the name “Cantonica” in black-on-black lettering right at the waistband.

            “I was doing some research,” says Ben.

            “Oh yeah?” Rey unfolds the white t-shirt she’d been given, which says CNTNC on the front in black Helvetica. Conspicuous, but classier than the bedazzling. “Hey, question. What do high-fashion brands have against vowels?”

            “No idea,” says Ben, taking her absurd query totally in stride. “There are two chapels right next to each other on Fremont Street.”

            Rey pulls the t-shirt on over her head. “Wonderful!” she exclaims. “Maybe we won’t have to walk through all of downtown after all.”

            “I called them.”

            “And?”

            “They didn’t marry us.”

            “What?” Rey sticks her head out through the curtain. “What do you mean they didn’t marry us?”

            “Neither of them have any record of us being there. Apparently, they were booked up last night. Vegas weddings are very popular.”

            “That doesn’t surprise me,” Rey grumbles. “But all right. If neither of those chapels married us, then who did?”

            “I’m not sure. You said your friend has some memory of what happened?”

            “Yeah, but I wouldn’t put all our eggs in Poe’s basket. That seems dangerous.” Rey ducks back into the fitting room and fumbles with the waistband of the leggings, searching for the price tag. She mutters under her breath, “All right, these are leggings. That shouldn’t be too bad. Just glance at the price and put it out of your mind. One, two, and—” Rey checks the tag. “ _What_?!”

            “What?” asks Ben, from outside the fitting room.

            “Ben, these leggings cost a thousand dollars.”

            “Yes.”

            “Yes?”

            “And?”

            “What do you mean, ‘and?’”

            “And… that’s too much money? We should go to H&M?”

            “Rey, we’re here.”

            Rey sighs and strips off the leggings, then picks up her next option, a pair of black jeans. “Oh, these are nine-fifty. As in, _nine hundred and fifty dollars_. Practically a discount.”

            “Do they fit?” Ben inquires, as casually as though he’s asking her about the weather.

            Rey bites back another sigh and says, “Hang on.” She steps into the jeans, shimmies them up her hips, and buttons them. She places her hands on her hips and looks in the mirror. “Yeah,” she admits in defeat. “Yeah, they fit.”

            “Can I see?”

            “Hmm.” Rey purses her lips. “All right. Just a sec.” Without looking at the tag, she pulls on the black leather jacket, one with absolutely no branding, that Natalie had procured for her. Then she puts her silver heels, the only shoes she has with her, back on, sweeps the curtain aside, and steps out.

            “Just jeans, a shirt, and a jacket,” she says, swishing her hands in front of her body. “See?”

            Ben, who is sitting on a bench that is apparently there for the weary spouses who might want to cool their heels while their wives shop, looks up at her, appraising her as though she were a sculpture he might consider purchasing. The box he brought with him sits next to him on the bench. “They do fit,” he says. “You have a good figure for high fashion.”

            Rey sticks out her lower lip in an exaggerated pout. “Ben Solo,” she says. “Are you trying to tell me I could be a model?”

            He leans back, and the corner of his mouth turns up again. She’s quickly getting used to his way of smiling, or smirking. “I might be,” he admits.

            “So is this… flirting?”

            “I can flirt with my wife.”

            Rey folds her arms. “That remains to be seen.”

            “Whether I can flirt with you?”

            “Whether I’m your wife.”

            “I guess that’s true.” He looks her over again. “So I _can_ flirt with you?”

            “Ben,” Rey says, “let’s just get out of this luxury hotel and find out whether we’re married before I go crazy, okay? I’m already sweating thinking about how expensive all of this is. I’m going to have to sell my organs.”

            “You’re not paying,” he says, adamant. He stands, all six-foot-two or -three inches of him. However tall he is. Which is very. “I already told you that. We can go after we find you some new shoes. I don’t think you’ll last very long in those heels.”

            “You’re probably right,” Rey concedes. “I don’t wear heels very often in the first place. I can already feel the blisters forming.”

            “We can get you outfitted with new shoes at SJP,” Ben continues. “And then there’s just the purse.”

            “What purse?” Rey asks.

            “Your purse. I’m buying you a new one.”

            “What?!” she exclaims.

            “While we’re here. Or we could go to Gucci, or Fendi, if you prefer—”

            “I don’t prefer goddamn _anything_!” Rey tells him, her voice rising to a near-shout. “This is my purse. I’m keeping it.”

            “But— I thought maybe because it wasn’t a phone...”

            Rey blinks. “You— what?”

            “The phone,” Ben says. “The control issues you mentioned. I thought it was because we were talking about technology. A purse is just a purse.”

            “It’s not,” she says, enunciating sharply as though she were talking to a child. “It’s not. Just. A purse. Not to me.”

            “Sir, ma’am,” says Natalie, hurrying over to them. “I’m sorry, but if you wouldn’t mind stepping outside while we pack up your—”

            “She’ll be wearing them out,” Ben tells her.

            “Just— everyone just hang _on_ a second,” says Rey, holding up her finger and wagging it at Ben. “I don’t think you understand.”

            Ben blinks back at her slowly. “What is there to not understand?”

            “Ben!” Rey snatches her purse up from where she dropped it on the ground and clutches it to her body. “I got this purse right before I left for schooling in the US. It reminds me of that time in my life. It reminds me of where I _came_ from. You’re not replacing it with some designer handbag that I’ll worry about messing up all the time. And that’s final.”

            Both Natalie and Ben look at her, absolutely agog. Rey swallows down the absurd urge to apologize—she hasn’t done anything wrong except raising her voice in a genteel space—and says, “I’m going outside.”

            “Rey—” Ben begins.

            “Ma’am,” Natalie says, with an air of practiced patience, “you still have to pay for those.”

            Rey’s cheeks burn. “Oh.”

            Ben reaches down into his pocket and pulls out his wallet. Out of the corner of Rey’s eye, which is blurring with hot, angry tears, she sees him extricate a black card and hand it to Natalie without another word. And since Rey can’t very well walk out of Cantonica starkers, she just lets it happen. She heaves her purse up onto her shoulder and stalks out of the store.

* * *

            The Bellagio mall is unreal. It’s nothing she ever imagined could be attached to a hotel. Luxury bags, luxury carpets, luxury sculptures, indoor greenery — which Rey generally considers a luxury. She sits down on the far side of one of the decorative columns that stretches from floor to ceiling and pulls her legs in. Childish, she knows, but she hopes that Ben won’t see her. This entire day, morning creeping slowly but surely toward the afternoon, she hasn’t had any space to breathe. She ducks her head down, pretending she’s invisible to all of the shoppers and tourists passing by.

            Maybe Ben realizes that she needs her space, because it’s a few minutes before he exits the shop, that orange box tucked up under his arm. Rey sees him before he sees her, watches him look around almost forlornly before he spots her and tries to rearrange his face into something a little less lost puppy. Rey feels a pang in her chest while simultaneously wondering what his problem is.

            She unfolds her legs and stands, adjusting her brand-new designer t-shirt and her brand-new designer leather jacket. Then she crosses her arms again and doesn’t say anything, thinking Ben might open with an apology.

            He doesn’t. He says instead, “You’re angry with me.”

            “Yes,” she says. “I am.”

            He looks completely befuddled. “Why?”

            “Because you keep— because you just—” She swings one arm out in a futile gesture that accomplishes absolutely nothing. It sounds ridiculous to say she’s angry at him for buying her fancy things, but that’s exactly the heart of the issue. Instead of trying to put it into words he might begin understand, she goes a different route. “Where on earth did you get the idea that you have to replace my things?”

            “I was looking at you all last night,” he says, “but I didn’t notice until this morning that your bag was falling apart and your shoes were scuffed. And I thought someone should do something about that. And… that that person should be me.”

            Rey studies the silver heels she’d worn down to the mall for lack of anything better to put on her feet. They are indeed a bit worse for wear. “Is that how you see me?” she asks. “As a charity case?”

            Ben shakes his head, and, without quite looking at her, he says, “I think you’re someone who deserves nice things.”

            She shakes her head at him. “You barely know me, Ben—”

            “I know you better than you think. Last night, when we— when you—” He massages his forehead with his thumb and two forefingers. “You told me so much, Rey. You told me about your upbringing. You told me about your parents, how they left you. And I know that. I know what that feels like.”

            Rey stares at him, speechless.

            “You were so trusting,” Ben continues, a bit of lamentation in his voice. “You trusted me.”

            “I. Was. _Drunk_ ,” she growls. “I might have spilled my guts to anyone. You just— you were the guy who happened to be there. I’m _really_ sorry, but I don’t want to lead you on. That’s what this is.”

            Ben keeps his eyes on hers. “Do you really believe that? Do you think there’s nothing about this, or us, or me— is it so impossible that you saw something in me too?”

            She sees him reach out for her, and thinks he might be about to touch her wrist— the notices that price the tag is still attached to the sleeve of her jacket. Forty-five hundred dollars. She grabs it and yanks it off herself, audibly snapping the plastic fastener, and Ben lets his hand fall back to his side. For reasons Rey can’t explain, she feels a twinge of regret.

            “Ben,” she says, strain in her voice. “I don’t… know that. I can’t say for sure. But I—” She clears her throat. “I think it’s best as though we proceed as two sober people.”

            “Right,” Ben says. His eyes flicker through several emotions; Rey thinks she might be watching a man go through at least two of the five stages of grief. Denial to anger. “I’m the one who should be worried,” he points out. “If we can’t annul the marriage and you want a divorce, you stand to inherit—”

            “I don’t… care about your money,” Rey says, awkwardly. “Really.”

            “But everyone else _has_ ,” he tells her, uncomprehending. “There’s no reason you shouldn’t.”

            “I don’t want it.” Rey pushes a stray tendril of hair away from her face. “I mean sure, a few thousand dollars here and there would help me with rent and things, but I don’t want you to give it to me.”

            “I could, though,” he says. His arms hang awkwardly at his sides; he clearly has no idea what to do with his hands. “It wouldn’t be a burden for me.”

            “Sure, but I don’t want that.”

            “Why not?”

            Rey exhales. “I just— it makes me uncomfortable. I’m not used to people just giving me things. It makes me think they must want something back.” She lets out a self-deprecating laugh. “I barely know what to say when my friends ask what presents to buy for me. I’m at a point in my life where I’m stable for once. I’m not struggling, so I don’t really need anything. And I didn’t grow up with people giving me things willy-nilly, so I don’t… I don’t know.”

            “You don’t trust it.”

            She glances up at him to find his brow furrowed. “Yes, exactly.” Then her eyes travel to the box again. “What’s in there, by the way?”

            “It’s just a gift I picked up for you, but I…” He turns away. “I can take it back.”

            “Is it a phone?”

            “What? No, it’s not a phone.” He brings the package out from under his arm, and Rey sees the brand name pressed into the lid for the first time: Hermès. Jesus Christ. “It’s a scarf.”

            “You bought me a scarf.”

            “It’s so bright,” he says. “It reminded me of you. And it turns out your outfit is dark, so you need an accent. Something that pops like you do.”

            Oh, no. It hadn’t sunk in for Rey entirely until this very moment. These gifts are courtship gifts. Against all odds, the man she may have married last night really is taken with her. And strangely, or maybe not so strangely, Rey doesn’t feel any sense of alarm or danger, knowing this about him. Ben’s kept his distance from her, hasn’t tried to touch her, only flirted with her a couple of times, and tried to give her every single thing in the world that she could ever want.

            Maybe he thinks receiving gifts is her love language.

            Rey lets out a wet laugh. She can’t do this. She can’t be the crazy person who sobs in the middle of the Bellagio mall while all these tourists pass by. “I’m sorry,” she says, rubbing at her eyes. “I didn’t think you were just trying to be _nice_.”

            Again, Ben seems unsure of what to do with his hands. He tucks the box under his arm again and puts them in his pockets instead of touching her. When he speaks, there is wryness to his voice. “To be fair, I might also want to get in your pants.”

            “Pfft.” Rey almost rubs her nose on the back of her wrist, then realizes with horror that that might mean getting snot on the sleeve of her forty-five hundred dollar jacket. She sniffs instead, and looks up at him. “They are _very_ nice pants.”

            “Yes, I agree.”

            “I don’t think they’d fit you, but thanks for your honesty.”

            “I’ve heard it’s the best policy.”

            A smile flits across her lips, but she presses them together and quashes it. Don’t get distracted. “The thing is, though, what you’re doing—not with the scarf, which was really thoughtful, but trying to replace all my other things—it doesn’t come off nice. It comes off a bit condescending.”

            “What?”

            “You shouldn’t just _assume_ I want a new bag, or a new phone,” she explains, feeling as though she’s going a bit mad, like she’s entered a reality slightly altered from her own. “At the very least, you should ask me.”

            “Oh.” Ben thinks about this for a second. “Can I ask you another question?”

            Rey flaps her hand. “Sure. Why not.”

            “Would you continue to stick around if you weren’t getting something out of it?”

            “What? Of course I would,” she chides. “You think I’m going to let you sort out our marriage issue alone?”

            “Oh,” he says again.

            “And at the very least, I’m going to want a selfie,” Rey says. “To commemorate the— I mean, I’m sure I’ll find it really funny once all the shock of everything dies down and we’ve figured it all out.”

            “Sure.”

            “And your number. So we can, you know. Text about it. In the event we have to get a divorce.”

            “Right.” He studies her with that piercing gaze. Strangely, that look— if anyone else were giving it to her, she’d say they were trying to undress her with their eyes. But with him it’s something different. He’s looking at her like a puzzle he’s trying to solve. He looks at her as though, with only his gaze, he can peel all of her layers away. “Rey.”

            “Yes?”

            “Do you want a new phone?”

            Laughter bubbles up from the pit of Rey’s stomach. “That’s funny.”

            With more serious sincerity than she has ever heard from him, Ben says, “I mean it.”

            Rey exhales, and looks at her shoddy, shoddy purse. She pulls out her iPhone and turns it over in her hand. “I do,” she admits. “I really would like a new phone. The thing is, though, that I want to get it for myself. So it’s nice of you to offer, but… ” she slides the phone back into her purse. “I think I’m going to hang onto this one for now.”

            She sees his mouth turn up at the corner. “All right. That’s good to know.”

            “But you’re right. It _is_ a piece of crap.” She gives him a slight smile in return. “It’s just my piece of crap. Do you know what I mean?”

            “I think so.” He is quiet for a second, then says, “I… admire that. How much you care about your things. And how you’re— proud of them.”

            “I’m proud because they’re mine. I worked for them, I earned them.”

            “Mm.”

            He looks away from her, down at his shoes. Rey watches him, puzzled, and then realizes aloud, “It must be different when everything’s disposable.”

            Ben swings his head back in her direction. “It— is.”

            “Things. Clothing. Cars? Probably?” she guesses.

            He nods.

            “Homes?”

            He shrugs, nods again.

            Rey thinks for a moment, wondering what else comes so easily to him that wouldn’t come to anyone else less privileged. And she asks, “... People?”

            Ben opens his mouth to respond, and Rey’s phone chooses that very moment to audibly buzz in her purse. She sighs. “I— sorry. That’s probably Finn and-or Poe, wondering where I am. I should check.”

            “It’s fine,” Ben says, but he sounds a bit distant. He tries to cover it up with that same dry humor. “You’re sparing me the pain of answering.”

            “Ha ha. We’ll come back to it. Don’t think we _won’t_.”

            “Believe me,” he says quietly, turning away from her, “I’m quickly learning how useless it is to try to get you to change your mind on anything.”

            Rey watches his back for a second, frowning. She’s upset him, and knowing that she’s upset him makes her stomach sink. She tells herself to snap out of it. After all, why should she care? They both made mistakes that led them to this point. They both are responsible for managing their emotions. It isn’t her fault that, in the light of day, the person she is clashes with the person he is.

            Still, Rey can’t shake her feelings of unease. It’s strange, but she finds that she _does_ care about Ben, even after having only known him a short time. Even after having watched him behave absolutely abominably toward his driver this morning. He’s clearly a very lonely person if he can become so invested in a girl he barely knows because she all but promised him that they would always have each other.

            And he remembers that promise. She doesn’t.

            Where does that leave them now?

* * *

            Mitaka drives them out to Fremont Street in a black limo. Rey is not sure if this is the car Poe had been cooing over the previous night, but she does know she exclaims “Bloody hell, that’s ours?” when it pulls up, and Ben, despite his black mood, gives her one of those little half-smiles as Mitaka opens the door for her.

            Rey, who now wears a pair of sensible ballet flats, slides sideways into the limo. Black leather seats, check. Seat warmers, check. Bottles of champagne? Check, although Rey thinks she might become a teetotaler after the consequences of last night’s binge. The limo isn’t gigantic, but it could easily accommodate a few more people in addition to them.

            “Good morning, Mitaka,” Rey says, once Ben climbs in after her and Mitaka gets into the driver’s seat. He’s now dressed smartly in uniform, cap and all.

            “Afternoon now, ma’am,” Mitaka says, adjusting the mirror.

            “Really?”

            “Yes, ma’am.”

            Rey rubs her face. “Where’s the day going?”

            “That’s enough, Mitaka,” Ben says. "Raise the partition." Rey glances at him, and he lets out a strained, “Please.”

            “Uh,” says Mitaka. “Yes, sir.”

            Then the partition comes up, separating him from them, and the limo pulls away from the Bellagio.

            Rey settles back in the seat, closes her eyes, and says, “He could be me, you know.”

            Ben looks at her. “What?”

            “I’m just saying, given the way my life’s unfolded, I could easily have wound up in a service job like that. Hell, I _have_. I was waiting tables when I was in uni, and I did a stint as a barista.” She shudders. “That was a time. One I don’t really want to revisit.”

            “People were cruel?”

            “Yeah, of course. Some people said I could _never_ get their orders right, even though I triple-checked every time. Some were condescending for the sake of it, you know. Power trip. Then when I was a waitress I had my arse pinched and I…” She pauses and peeks at him through one eye. “My response to that one is why I’m not a waitress anymore.”

            Ben turns his head and stares straight ahead. He doesn’t speak for a minute or so.

            “Are you adding up the number of baristas you’ve been rude to in your head?” Rey teases.

            “Other people get my coffee,” he says, a bit sharply. But he glances at her again. “So— you’re saying that anyone— any cashier, any server— that could be you. You, someone who…” He clears his throat. “I… like.”

            Rey raises both her eyebrows. “You still like me? I nearly pitched a fit because you wanted to buy me a purse.”

            Ben works his jaw. “No one talks to me like you do,” he says, after a moment. “It’s refreshing. And I like that.”

            “Right.” Rey feels warmth woosh into her chest like the tide sweeping in. She opts to look at the partition instead of his face. “Well yes, that’s what I’m saying. Didn’t they teach you that other people have thoughts and feelings at Yale?”

            “It wasn’t in the curriculum.”

            “What about Harvard?”

            “Empathy wasn’t an integral part of my business degree.”

            “Yeah, that tracks.” Rey folds her arms, chews the inside of her cheek. “Can I… see the scarf?”

            “You want to?”

            “Sure. I’m curious.” She gives him a little smile. “I’ve never seen an Hermès scarf before.”

            Ben hesitates. “Most of them are hideous, to be fair.”

            “Ben.”

            He hands her the orange box without protest. She places it gingerly on her lap, as if the contents are fragile and easily bruised. When she lifts the lid off the box, she gasps.

            “It wasn’t much,” Ben says. “It just made me think of you.”

            Rey picks up the scarf and unfolds it, holding it out before her. The scarf is a mostly maroon square, with triangles of different color on the corners: yellow, blue, green, and pink. It is made of the finest silk Rey has ever beheld— which, granted, isn’t saying much, but means a lot all the same. She rubs the material between her thumb and forefinger, marveling at how smooth and shiny it is.

            “What do I do with it?” she asks, somewhat at a loss. “Do I wear it over my head, or…”

            “I think you tie it behind your neck,” Ben guesses. “I don’t wear many scarves.”

            “All right,” Rey says. “We’ll give that a shot.”

            She pulls her freshly-dried hair to the side, then takes diagonally opposite corners of the scarf in her hand and folds it into a triangle. She reaches back and knots it at the nape of her neck. When she looks down at the scarf, she sees that the yellow corner is front and center; the other colors are hidden under it, or behind her hair.

            “It’s really pretty,” she muses. “I like— it’s really _nice_ , Ben.”

            “Like I said, you deserve nice things. Keep it.”

            “I—”

            “Please,” he adds, softly.

            Rey touches the yellow corner of the scarf. “Thank you,” she says. “A souvenir, then. Something to remember this whole adventure by.”

            “And the other clothes,” Ben points out. “And the ring, if you keep it.”

            “Oh, right. The ring.”

            Rey picks up her left hand and studies the golden band around the base of her ring finger. She’s already grown so used to the strange weight of it on her hand. With a frown, she grips it loosely with her right hand, turns it on her finger. There’s no inscription, no engraving, no pattern. The gold seems real. It’s simple, but elegant in its simplicity. Rey can’t shake the feeling that it’s familiar somehow.

            “Where did this ring come from?” she asks, holding it up in front of her face and watching the outside light glint off the gold band. “Do you know it? Is it yours?”

            Ben shakes his head. “No. I don’t think it would fit me.”

            Rey eyes his hands. His fingers. It clicks in her slightly-less-hungover brain that actually, they’re very long, and quite girthy, which probably has some significance. After all, everyone knows what they say about big hands… Her eyes stray toward his trousers, and— nope, no, she is not doing that right now. They’re practically strangers! They may not even be married strangers! Keep it simple. Don’t complicate things.

            “Where’s your ring?” she asks. “Isn’t that what we do? Exchange rings?”

            “I… it’s in my pocket.”

            “In your pocket?” Rey asks, bewildered. “Why?”

            “It was inconvenient to wear. But I was going to get a new one—”

            “You can’t just say that. What’s so inconvenient about it?”

            “Well, it…“ Ben sighs. “It’s plastic. And it has a stem…”

            “It has a— oh no.” Rey’s eyes widen in horror. “I gave you a Ring Pop?”

            He presses his mouth together, but it twitches. “And you ate most of it after. I helped, but only a little..”

            “Oh _no_.” She groans and ducks her head down almost to her knees. “God! I am such a moron!”

            “Only when drunk.”

            “Thank you, that’s reassuring. Sober me is feeling very foolish.” Rey sits back up and covers her face with her hands. “A Ring Pop! And you gave me this nice gold ring!”

            “I…” Ben averts his eyes to the ceiling. “Never mind.”

            “Never mind what?”

            “No, it’s inappropriate.”

            “Now I have to know.” Rey twists toward him in her seat. “I took off your pants last night. How much more inappropriate can it be?”

            “It was just… the Ring Pop was more fun than a normal ring.”

            Rey’s eyes narrow. “Okay…”

            Ben sighs. “There was much more licking—”

            “Oi!” Rey squeaks. She reaches over and lightly slaps his arm. “Get your mind out of the gutter, _Benjamin_!”

            “You asked!”

            “Sometimes a Ring Pop is just a Ring Pop,” Rey says. “It’s not a prelude to other licking activities. God! You men!”

            Ben chuckles. It’s a real chuckle, deep and low. “‘Other licking activities?’”

            “You shove it,” Rey huffs, but she’s grinning at him. “You’ve got no right.”

            “I’m your husband,” he points out. “Maybe.”

            “Still,” Rey says, “no right.” She turns the ring on her hand again.

            Ben lets out a long exhale, as if trying to get his breath back under control. He says, “I assume we got your ring first, or maybe we had it already. And then you realized you didn’t have one for me, so… we made do with what we could.”

            “But why would we have had a ring?” Rey asks, puzzled. “It’s not like I could afford something like this, and you weren’t planning to wed anyone last night. And I don’t think that any of my…”

            The words die on her tongue. “What?” Ben asks. “Any of your what?”

            "Oh, my God." Rey turns to him, wide-eyed, and says in a low voice, “I know whose ring this is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [This](https://www.hermes.com/us/en/product/quatre-coins-scarf-70-H983270Sv05/) is the scarf that Ben gets Rey. ♥

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/destiniesfic) and [Tumblr](http://destinieswritten.tumblr.com/)! If you liked this story, check out [the graphics](http://destinieswritten.tumblr.com/post/180419214918/a-strong-heart-and-a-nerve-of-steel-47-is-that) for it on Tumblr. Reblogs are love, and if you share them you will make my whole day. :)


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